School ordered to take back teen who held gun in photo

An Arkansas Education Department official has ordered a school district to take back a 15-year-old student accused of posting a photo of himself holding what appeared to be a gun.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that a hearing officer made the decision last week despite Vilonia School District officials saying the teen is potentially dangerous to students and staff.

The official’s report says a psychiatrist from a facility where the boy was admitted said he doesn’t “pose a threat to himself or others.”

Website subpoenaed in serial killer probe

LOS ANGELES

Investigators hunting for the so-called Golden State Killer subpoenaed a genetics website last year while investigating an Oregon man who was misidentified as a potential suspect.

The revelation that investigators compelled a genetics company to provide user information adds to a growing debate about legal and privacy concerns involving law enforcement and companies whose millions of users submit their DNA to discover their heritage.

Court records obtained by The Associated Press last week showed investigators persuaded a judge in Clackamas County, Ore., a year ago to order a 73-year-old man in a nursing home to provide a DNA sample.

Dozens with ties to supremacist gangs arrested in Texas

DALLAS

Federal authorities say dozens of people associated with white-supremacist gangs in Texas have been indicted on drug-trafficking charges, including four accused in a kidnapping in which a hatchet was used to chop off a victim’s finger.

Authorities said Monday that 57 people are charged. Forty-two were arrested last week, nine people were already in custody on unrelated charges and six are still being sought.

An indictment alleges the defendants were members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and other gangs. Prosecutors allege the scheme operated from October 2015 through this month as members conspired to distribute methamphetamine in Texas.

“Not only do white-supremacist gangs subscribe to a repugnant, hateful ideology, they also engage in significant, organized and violent criminal activity,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a Justice Department statement.

States suing to end Dreamers program

AUSTIN, Texas

Texas and six other states are suing to end once and for all a program that would protect some young immigrants from deportation.

The lawsuit announced Tuesday comes a week after a federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump administration to resume the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Immigrants under the Obama-era program are commonly referred to as Dreamers. Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had threatened legal action for the past year if the program didn’t come to a halt.

Joining Texas in the lawsuit are Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina and West Virginia.